Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Probably not. Pakistan is far away and the U.S. media wasn't much interested. For whatever reason, this natural disaster didn't get the full sensational media treatment given to the Asian tsunami or, perhaps more understandably because of its proximity, the Haitian earthquake.

UNICEF's director of emergency operations, Louis-George Arsenault, in August called the rich countries' lack of response "quite extraordinary."

Since we didn't rush to help in this emergency, other forces were all too ready to take advantage. According to Haider Ali Hussein Mullick of the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding, those floods were "a godsend for al Qaeda."

To overstretch armies, smart insurgents always pray for the opening of multiple fronts. The damage from the floods couldn't be worse -- 1/5th of Pakistan (size of New England) inundated, seven million people lost their homes, and $30 billion in total damages. The timing was equally terrible: The Pakistani surge was finally working, and troops were holding Swat and South Waziristan since 2009.

Today, the nuclear-armed Pakistani army is under great stress, and reluctant to go into North Waziristan, home to al Qaeda, the Haqqani network, and the Pakistani Taliban. The army is the police, National Guard, relief organization, reconstruction agency, and governing body in critical areas in the north and south, while the weak civilian government is perceived to be corrupt, inept, and aloof as it wrestles with the Supreme Court. Half of 180 million Pakistanis are under the age of 25 and facing high prices, unemployment and little opportunity. They watch the rich pay virtually no taxes and they find solace in U.S. and India bashing, and blissful ignorance about their actual enemies, which are the al Qaeda syndicate, corruption and poverty. Al Qaeda couldn't ask for a better home.

The United States has a budget-devouring, muscle-bound military that has been shooting up hostile countries for a decade while failing to succeed at pacifying them -- but can't or won't perform the elementary functions that could make friends. Assisting Pakistanis in their need was an opportunity for graceful amends for our imperial overstretch, but apparently the powers that be couldn't imagine such a thing.

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What's this blog about?

My musings on current events, current projects, current anxieties and current delights.

I started this under the Bush regime when any grain of sand thrown into the gears of the over-reaching imperial state seemed worthwhile.

I have worked to elect more and better Democrats -- and to hammer the shit out of them once we get them in office so they do the things their constituents want and need. It's a big job.

I have endured the dashed potential for a more transformational regime under Obama. The man has made himself an accomplice in the imperial crimes of his predecessor as well as committing his own. He has also almost certainly been the most progressive president most of us will live to see. I fear we'll look back on his years in office with mild gratitude for a respite from national leadership that was habitually stupid and vicious, as well as wrong.

Visitors here will find a lot of commentary on books I'm reading. I am very intentionally reading intensively offline these days. When it feels hard to find direction, it's time to learn something new.

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About Me

I'm a progressive political activist who runs trails and climbs mountains whenever any are available. I've had the privilege to work for justice in Central America (Nicaragua and El Salvador), in South Africa, in the fields of California with the United Farmworkers Union, and in the cities and schools of my own country. I'm a Christian of the Episcopalian flavor; we think and argue a lot. For work, I've done a bit of it all: run an old fashioned switch-board; remodeled buildings and poured concrete; edited and published periodicals, reports and books; and organized for electoral campaigns. I am currently an independent consultant to organizations seeking "help when you have to make a fight."